My Lost Toddlerhood

People often told me I should have been a model. My identical twin even had a brief modelling stint and appeared in the local paper. I had fair, angular features, blue eyes from Dad, an early growth spurt that made me tall against other schoolgirls. But inside, I felt ugly. Disfigured and unfeminine. Adolescence came like a spotlight shining on me and all I wanted to do was hide in the dark. I didn’t want anyone looking at me. My mirror image seemed to hide an inner disfigurement. Analysis taken from my book The Lessons My book Mirror Image Shattered explains, my diaries from college describe ‘terrible shyness,’ times where I froze for an hour at Christmas parties, terrified boys would detect the black, ugly thing I drag around. I feared people would see this other self in my eyes. I feared they would find me uneasy to be around. She’s a bit ‘weird’, ‘eerie’. She doesn’t say much. What’s wrong with her? I envied carefree girls who revel in being themselves and joke around with other b...